I just wanted to let everyone know I updated the .223/5.56 section of my Ammo Availability page. Its been over 3 months since my last update and I apologize for that. I needed to take a break from the blog but I’m back now and I’ll try to post again on a semi-regular basis.

The good news is, it looks like ammo is a lot more available again. Every single supplier had more options to choose from than 3 months ago. The bad news is, everything appears to have settled in at a price that’s far higher than I had hoped it would be. I hoped that once ammo was becoming available again, prices would come back down a ways and I don’t think that’s going to happen.

I plan to update the rest of the rifle calibers this evening after work, so look for that this later. Hopefully the pistol ammo can get updated in the next day or two as well. As always, let me know if there is another caliber that you would like me to add to the list.

Every caliber of ammunition over on my Ammo Availability page is now up to date. It took a long time and I apologize for that, but hopefully it was worth the wait.

As I was changing the in-stock numbers I noticed that almost everything had improved. 9mm ammo in particular saw a huge increase in availability from last month. Several websites had more than doubled their previous inventory. Not only that but 50 Action Express is now available on at least 3 websites for a combined 8 options. That’s significantly better that previous updates.

On another note, I want to thank all of my subscribers for their continued support. Even while I’ve been away from the blog, moving into our apartment, I’ve continued to gain followers. I’m up to 80 now and that’s pretty cool to me. I never thought anything I said or wrote was worth listening to or reading, but you’ve all proven me wrong.

I know my posts aren’t always that interesting and sometimes I don’t post at all, but knowing that people like to read what I have to say motivates me to keep going and improving. Its been a fun 7 months and I’m looking forward to many more to come. Thanks.

I just wanted to let everyone know that my Ammo Availability page is coming along pretty nicely. It now contains links for .223/5.56, 7.62×39, .50 AE, .45 ACP, and 9mm Luger. I’m going to work on the others throughout this evening so before the day is up I’ll have a few more. Once the basic formatting and layout is complete for each caliber, I’ll start more actively updating the “in stock” options.

Overall I’m happy with how this is going to be set up and I think it will save me a considerable amount of time. If you have any comments or suggestions regarding the formatting of the new page, please let me know. I would also appreciate it if anyone can find errors in the links or anchors. I do my best to check everything before I update the page but I’m bound to miss something.

I had a revelation on my drive home today. The way I’ve been handling these ammo updates is not very efficient at all. I’ve been trying to find a way to provide the updates more often while not sacrificing my soul and all my free time to do so; I may have done it.

As of this moment, I will no longer be posting new updates regarding ammunition availability. Instead, I am working on an entirely new page for the blog that will have permanent links to every supplier I check, even if there is no ammo in stock. The updates will come in the way of updates to the page itself. I’ll change the information beside the links to show what is available each time I update things.

The goal of this is to ease the pressure on myself by eliminating all the redundant typing that I do each week. In addition, it will clean things up. I will no longer be continuously building a list of posts that become irrelevant when a new one is added. One other benefit to this method is that I will be providing all my suppliers, even if they have nothing in stock one week. Hopefully this will help others discover suppliers that they may not have known about before. Since I can’t cover every caliber out there, maybe having that extra resource will be at least a little help to those who are looking for other types of ammo.

If you have any comments, questions, or suggestions, please let me know. If there are any other calibers that you would like included, please leave a comment. If you’re vocal about what you would like to see I’ll do my best to include them. Having everything on one page will make it a lot easier for me to add other calibers.

One last thing! As requested in a previous update, I’ve added 7mm Remington Magnum to the list. From now on you’ll be able to find availability for that caliber on my blog as well.

Life has been pretty crazy lately. Work is twice as busy as it was the past few weeks and its all I can do to stay on top of my work throughout the day. At home, my fiance is about to graduate from college. Stress is abundant, but I’m still going to do my best to keep up with the blog.

As far as ammo is concerned, the pattern continues and .45 ammo is still the most widely available. Most of the places I checked have about 10 different options each. The availability in local shops is still pretty bad but I’ve noticed that seems to be picking up again as well. Hopefully that continues.

Thanks for everyone’s continued support and I hope that I’m able to keep on posting into the future. If things get too busy or stressful, I’ll cut back on the blog a bit but hopefully I wont have to.

Also, sorry to anyone who has previously communicated with me at my Yahoo email address. Or to anyone who’s page I was subscribed to using my yahoo address. I’ve stopped using it almost completely after it was hacked a few weeks ago and because of that I’m sure I probably missed a few things. My new email address is BackyardShooter@aol.com, so feel free to contact me there if you have any questions or comments.

Last week I ran a poll on my blog (its posted below as well to continue the voting) that asked what your favorite type of gun was for recreational shooting. The choices were handguns, rifles, or shotguns. At the end of the week there were a total of 30 votes, making it the one with the most votes so far. Handguns won by far with 18 votes. Rifles were next with 11 votes. Shotguns brought up the rear with one lonely vote.

I honestly thought that rifles would have had the most, even though I personally prefer handguns as well. The reason I thought rifles would be the favorite is because there has been such a fus lately about ARs and tactical rifles. .223 ammo had been impossible to find for a while, so I just naturally assumed that people were more interested in shooting rifles. But it seems I may have been wrong.

The reason I prefer handguns is just because they’re smaller and less cumbersome than a rifle. You can load up 2 or 3 pistols and head to the range for the same effort as one rifle. Ammo is smaller and generally less expensive. Rifles are fun as well, don’t get me wrong, but I just love taking my Ruger SR22 to the range and blasting through a bunch of 22s.

Here’s the poll again (over on the right) in case you didn’t get a chance to vote before I pulled it down. Let me know in the comments why you voted the way you did. What makes you prefer a handgun over a rifle or vice versa? Is it convenience or something else? Do you prefer the tactical applications your AR brings, or are you more of a Glock aficionado? Lets get the debate rolling!

Also, be sure to vote in this weeks poll (over on the left) to be part of next week’s discussion.

There are only a few days left in March so I thought I would do another ammo update. Spring is officially here and its getting warm outside. With that comes more opportunities to go out and shoot so make sure you get some ammo while you can if you haven’t already.

Here’s what was available as of 10:00pm on Thursday, March 28th, 2013:

Its clear that 9mm has taken a hit since my last update just 5 days ago. Everything else seems to have remained about the same. Prices are still high, but there’s nothing we can do about that but grit our teeth and move on. The days of cheap ammo may well be dead and buried.